Excerpt from Work in Progress: The Gates to Faerie

(I will warn you that this bit suffers from being out of context as well as first draft. The situation being talked about isn't the main focal point of this novel. Never too early to start setting up sequels. *cue evil laughter*)

Julie had noticed we appeared to be heading for the Grapevine. "I thought you said they were on the other side of some sort of gate! We appear to be heading up the perfectly normal highway through the Grapevine!"

"Skepticism is fine for now, Honey. The transport network on this side is a lot faster. There aren't exactly interstates and gas stations on the other side! Trust me, you'll see!"

"So those stories you told me about your great-grandmother? She really was a shaman?"

"She really is a shaman, Mark. She's still alive, she makes crops grow better than anyone else, and doesn't look any older than I do. How old do you think I am?"

"I've always thought of you as being younger than I am."

"Mark, I was born over sixty years ago! My mother is well over a hundred, my grandmother is older than the United States. The gift diminishes with each generation removed, but some still remains."

"And your great-grandmother?"

"We think she's under a thousand."

"So these elves - right? - lose a war and find themselves enslaved. But it doesn't sound like they're slaves any longer?"

"They rebelled. And they got assistance, somehow. There was a journey - a long journey. It's all oral history from songs and tales around the fire. They ended up on an Earth that's like a changed Earth, and it's somehow touching our Earth. And there things stayed for a very long time. There were even colonies on the Earth side."

"And then one day, some regular humans appeared on Earth. We don't know how they got here - they didn't remember how their ancestors got here. But they sure displaced everything that competed with them. That's about all of the story I know, except that the Elves are concerned that humans have started crossing over into their world."